The Whisperer – needs to keep quiet

2 of 5 Wasted-Talent Stars – The Whisperer by Ioanna Carlsen.

I don’t know what the fuck the cover of this book is supposed to represent. But I have to assume it’s an abstract portrait of the author’s dog, or something. Because more than half the poems in this book are about a dog. A fucking dog.

Look, I don’t fucking care about your goddamn dog, okay? And I don’t care about the swan in the lake. Or how the fire crackles in the motherfucking hearth. Who gives a shit? It’s fucking stupid.

Good poetry isn’t about things. It’s about you, the author. Go ahead and write a fucking poem about a goddamn swan if you want, but don’t tell me about the swan. Tell me about how the swan makes you feel. How it reminds you of your childhood. Or some such bullshit.

The problem with the poems in this book is the lack of feeling, or emotion of any kind. It made me feel nothing. I really think it’s because the author chose to write about things, instead of herself, or her relationships. Because what makes a poem great is the emotion that you put on the page. That’s what makes it real.

I do believe that this poet has talent. I just think it’s wasted on this collection. I think that if she put more of herself into her poetry, it would be much better. It might actually make me feel something.

Unless of course, she’s a fucking psychopath, who actually has no feelings. That would explain a lot. Because even the poems that I thought might be about her used pronouns other than ‘me’ or ‘I’. So it’s all a fucking mystery.

But that mystery didn’t make it alluring. It just pissed me off. I kept screaming as I was reading this on the shitter… “Tell me how you really feel, goddamnit!” But it was all for nothing. Because in the end, none of Ioanna’s feelings were on the page. Just more drivel.

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Dixie’s Wasteland – is quite suicidal

5 of 5 Pretty-Goth-Chick Stars – Dixie’s Wasteland by Dixie A. Conley.

One wouldn’t expect me to be a big fan of poetry. I mean I have the vocabulary of a goddamn eight year old, for fuck’s sake. How could I possibly appreciate a good poem?

I don’t know. All I do know is, I can spot talent when I see it. And Dixie has got talent as a poet in spades. The only poetry I can compare hers to is the classics. E.E. Cummings. T.S. Elliot, and the like. Because very few modern poets have her kind of style.

In this book of poems, Dixie ponders the idea of love. The existence of God. And the real truth behind the escape of suicide. In the front of the book, she includes a disclaimer that states that she’s not suicidal anymore. But she also says that many of these poems were written over twenty years ago, when she was in fact quite suicidal.

So the poems about suicide aren’t just the ramblings of an emo goth chick. No, these poems are real. Because they were written by someone who really was suicidal. Someone who even decided how and when she was going to do it. Because her life fucking sucked. And she felt that suicide was her only way out.

I enjoyed this book, not because I love reading about suicidal girls, but because the emotion and passion was real. I felt that shit, deep in my heart. And I’m glad that Dixie has finally found a way to get some kind of happiness out of life.

Check out her blog, where she posts a new poem from this book every day.

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